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The University of California, Berkeley is a leading research institution, producing promising research in all divsions of the life sciences. To help further research in immunotherapy and cancer, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley have recently teamed up with the Berkeley-based biotech company, Aduro Biotech Inc., for a $7.5 million immunotherapy initiative. This Immunotherapeutics and Vaccine Research Initiative (IVRI) will provide three years of funding to infectious disease researchers studying new techniques for combating both infections and cancer.

At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, biological engineers have created what is becoming known as a “bio-bot.” It’s neither a cyborg nor an android, and it can fit on the face of a dime. What makes it special is that it can walk independently: that is, without the help of any mechanisms or electronic parts.

While today’s advancements in biotechnology suggest that there’s nothing we can’t artificially produce, sometimes there’s just no substitute for nature’s own recipes. At least, that’s the philosophy behind the University of Minnesota’s Schmidt-Dannert Lab, whose aim is to harness compounds created in natural organisms like plants and fungi that cannot be produced by chemical means. Many of these compounds have beneficial properties that can be used in further research and drug production.

For example, take chloroplasts, the organelles that perform photosynthesis inside plant cells. They provide energy to plant cells when exposed to light. Animal cells don’t have chloroplasts, which means they’re missing out on a valuable energy source. The Schmidt-Dannert Lab, led by University of Minnesota professor Claudia Schmidt-Dannert, is working toward is creating solar-powered animal cells that are more productive and produce different sorts of organic materials.